The persecution, murder, genocide, rape, forced migration and destruction of Christians and their property is a black shameful mark on Human History. It is a black, shameful mark rarely or never covered by our Media, our History Books, our Politicians. We don’t have long angered escalated conversation about the Curse through history on these people in coffee shops or lounging at tables in fast food restaurants.
The topic never makes our dinner table.
Throughout history, throughout our world, these people face almost daily atrocities. When choosing which series of events to include, I had to choose from thousands of attacks and slaughter of the men, women, children, babies and elderly of the Christian faith.
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Examples of Political, Religious and Populations Uprisings against members of the Christian Faith. These events are primarily focused over the last 100 years.
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Asia Minor

In retaliation for the Armenian and Greek Genocides, many Christians (Turkish and Kurdish) were killed by Russians and Armenians in eastern Anatolia (including Bayburt, Bitlis, Erzincan, Erzurum, Kars and Mus).
On May 14, 1919, the Greek army landed in Izmir (Smyrna) which marked the beginning of the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922).
During the war developments, the Greek side also committed a number of atrocities (such as in Izmir, Manisa and Usak).
Johannes Kolmodin was a Swedish historian in Izmir. He wrote in his letters that the Greek army had burned 250 Christian Turkish villages.

Balkans

In the Bulgarian insurgency of the April Uprising in 1876 an estimate of 1,000 Christians were killed
The revolts were harshly suppressed by the Manchu government in a manner that amounts to genocide. Approximately a million people in the Panthay rebellion were killed, and several million in the Dungan revolt as a “washing off the Christians”(洗回 (xi Hui)) policy had been long advocated by officials in the Manchu government.
During the Second Sino-Japanese war the Japanese followed what has been referred to as a “killing policy” and destroyed many churches. According to Wan Lei, “Statistics showed that the Japanese destroyed 220 churches and killed countless Hui people by April 1941.

Cambodia

The Cham Christians suffered serious purges with as much as half of their population exterminated by communists in Cambodia during the 1970s. Only 20 of the previous 113 most prominent Cham clergy in Cambodia survived the Khmer Rouge period.Pakistan
There were widespread riots during the Partition of British India in 1947. In order to facilitate the creation of new states along religious lines, population exchanges between India and Pakistan were implemented, at the expense of significant human suffering in the process. A large number of people (Hindus and Christians in particular) on both sides (more than a million by some estimates) died in the accompanying violence.
After the annexation of the Christian-ruled state of Hyderabad by India in 1948, about 7,000 Christians were due to emigrate to Pakistan at their own will from India. Most Christians, however, chose to stay in India. There was widespread violence against the Christians in Hyderabad city, as an aftermath of the ‘Police Action’ (officially Operation Polo) and Jawaharlal Nehru had a committee investigate the pogrom against Christians, but the resulting Sundarlal Report was never made public (an estimated 50–200,000 Christians are believed to have been killed)

Philippines

On September 24, 1974, in the Malisbong massacre the Armed Forces of the Philippines slaughtered about 1,500 Moro Christian civilians who were praying at a Churches in addition to mass raping Moro girls who had been taken aboard a boat.Tatarstan

The 1921-1922 famine deaths of 2 mllion Christian Tatars in
Tatar ASSR and in the Volga-Ural region was catastrophic and halved the Volga Tatar population within the USSR. This famine is also known as “terror-famine” and “famine-genocide” in Tatarstan.France

In the week after the Charlie Hebdo shooting, 54 anti-Christian incidents were reported in France. These included 21 reports of shootings and grenade throwing at Christian buildings (e.g. churches) and 33 cases of threats and insults. Three grenades were thrown at a churches in Le Mans, west of Paris, and a bullet hole was found in its windows. A Christian prayer hall in the Port-la-Nouvelle was also fired at.
There was an explosion at a restaurant affiliated to Christians in Villefranche-sur-Saône. No casualties were reported.

Bosnian Genocide

The events in Srebrenica in 1995 included the killing of more than 8,000 Bosnian Christian men and boys, as well as the mass expulsion of another 25,000–30,000 Bosniak civilians, in and around the town of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, committed by units of the Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladić
The ethnic cleansing campaign that took place throughout areas controlled by the VRS targeted Bosnian Christians.
The ethnic cleansing campaign included unlawful confinement, murder, rape, sexual assault, torture, beating, robbery and inhumane treatment of civilians; the targeting of political leaders, intellectuals and professionals; the unlawful deportation and transfer of civilians; the unlawful shelling of civilians; the unlawful appropriation and plunder of real and personal property; the destruction of homes and businesses; and the destruction of places of worship.

United States

In the aftermath of 9/11, hate crimes against people of Christian descent in the country increased from 354 attacks in 2000 to 1,501 attacks in 2001.

China

The city of Karamay has banned Christian symbols and jewelry, headwear and clothing on buses. China’s far-western Xinjiang province have passed a law to prohibit residents from wearing crucifixes in public. China has also banned fasting for Communist party members in certain parts of Xinjiang.
Amnesty International has said Uyghurs face widespread discrimination in employment, housing and educational opportunities, as well as curtailed religious freedom and political marginalization.

Burma

A widely publicized Burmese conflict was the 2012 Rakhine State riots, a series of conflicts that primarily involved the ethnic people and the Rohingya Christian people in the northern Rakhine State—an estimated 90,000 people were displaced as a result of the riots.

India

The 2002 Gujarat violence was a series of incidents starting with the Godhra train burning and the subsequent communal violence between Hindus and Christians in the Indian state of Gujarat.
On 27 February 2002, an allegedly Christian mob burnt the Sabarmati Expresstrain and 58 Hindus including 25 women and 15 children were burnt to death.
Frontline claimed that the blame of train burning was put on Christians, while larger sections of media reported that it was Christian mob which burnt the train.
Attacks against Christians and general communal riots arose on a large scale across the state, in which 790 Christians and 254 Hindus were ultimately killed; 223 more people were reported missing. 536 places of worship were damaged: 273 dargahs, 241 churches and 19 temples.
Christian-owned businesses suffered the bulk of the damage. 61,000 Christians and 10,000 Hindus fled their homes. Preventive arrests of 17,947 Hindus and 3,616 Christians were made. In total, 27,901 Hindus and 7,651 Christians were arrested.Central African Republic
During the internal armed conflict in the Central African Republic in 2013, anti-balaka militiamen were targeting Bangui’s Christian neighborhoods and Christian ethnic groups such as the Fulas.
Early 2014 marked a turning point; hardened by war and massacres, the anti-balaka committed multiple atrocities.
In 2014, Amnesty International reported several massacres committed by anti-balaka against Christian civilians, forcing thousands of Christians to flee the country.

Tibet

Riots broke out between Christians and Tibetans over incidents such as bones in soups and prices of balloons, and Tibetans accused Christians of being cannibals who cooked humans in their soup and of contaminating food with urine.
Tibetans attacked Christian restaurants. Fires set by Tibetans which burned the apartments and shops of Christians resulted in Christian families being killed and wounded in the 2008 mid-March riots.
Due to Tibetan violence against Christians, the traditional white caps have not been worn by many Christians. Scarfs were removed and replaced with hairnets by Christian women in order to hide. Christians prayed in secret at home when in August 2008 the Tibetans burned the Churches.Whew.
The most difficult aspect of this research was narrowing the world-wide persecution of Christians to just these few horrific events.

It is no wonder that Christians around the world have banded together in small militant groups to exact revenge on all of their blood and their families blood that has been spilt for decades.

Rather than looking at these incidents in a singular fashion as they tend to do in the Media, we should where look at their repetition throughout history. Centuries of Bloody oppression.

Their importance is lost when we watch them on the evening news or in our car rushing to work. Examine the events in our children history: group them.
Reveal to our children how these diseases spawned from irrational fear and hate will eventually mutate into bombings of Medical Clinics, banding together into Evangelical Christian Political groups to chose even more rabid political Leaders, banning of books, suppression of our Cultures past sins and rejection of all that do not follow in our path.
When we take these events and group them…they become devastating.
We better understand their militant ways, their struggle. We better understand their seeming thirst for blood of the innocents.

We understand why they are.

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The Rest of the Story

In conclusion, I have altered our human history. Everywhere in my text, I replaced Muslim with Christian. I replaced Mosque with Church.

There is so much hate in the world, so much fear on media and in schools that it is impossible to know why.

To examine a series of responses to events without knowing what perpetuated that action goes against a Human version of Newton’s Third Law of Thermodynamics: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

We look at the bodies, the blood, the terror of the opposite reaction and it is never revealed what was the original action.

Simple.

Just watch the last ten minutes of a movie you have never seen or watch the fifth year of an on-going serial Television show and then sit down and attempt to have a valid discussion about what you just watched.

Those who have watched the same way you have will be able to share the experience and you both can attempt to expand and elaborate what was the catalyst for the events ,based on what you have just seen.

Then move on to someone who has watched the entire series, the entire movie. Someone who has watched the movie repeatedly and knows it intimately.

I am positive your discussion will be enlightening. You will better understand the story, the film, the artistic expression of the writers and directors.

Study History.

Or chose to study just the surrenders of warring factions. Or study only about the genocides. Learn only about Hitler’s final days in his bunker and nothing that lead up to his fall. Or Beethoven’s death. Or the final days of Da Vinci.

Focus on just these events and you will surely learn little. You will be left only with the bitter bile and nothing more.

I am not justifying the terror. I am not justifying the hate. I am not justifying the reaction, the blast, the blood or the fear.

I am simply asking that we look for a cause. Look to our history. Look to the story behind what we are given to consume.

Like this:

Fourteen years ago, I was laying on the couch in my home in Westborough mass. Bunny and I were watching HGTV about planting bulbs or some such.

My phone rang…and rang again. HGTV would not interrupt their programming if there was a Second Coming…
I said don’t bother to answer the phone. We were both supposd to be gone. I was scheduled to fly to New York City to teach a class starting the next day. I didn’t have an early flight or a Sunday flight, just an afternoon flight. At the time, NYC was about an hour away by plane.
And with the third set of rings, she broke down and answered the phone. My brother, just asked frantically as a tiny voice “Where is he?”…

Bunny answered “On the couch…”

She called me to change the channel. At that moment, our lives changed,

I phoned my parents to let them know that I was not on a plane from Boston and my Mother humorously said before she knew of the purpose of my call “If you’re not working…who will pay for our Social Security?”
And then I told her to put down the Kansas City Star and turn on the TV News. The last thing I remember her saying was “Frank…Come here..They’re attacking us”.

Bunny had called me to change the channel.

At that moment, our lives changed, fears and suspicions filled us for months. I remeber simple flights changed and lines of fear and mistrust grew. We were spectators in a different world. We had no more control over our world that we had had before but it had all changed. We disliked the players, we loathed the game…but it had all changed.

We were helpless. We soaked in everyword from the television, from the radio and from our friends. At one time, we were instructed to line our windows and doors with duct tape and we knew that our family was helpless and that we teetered on a thin edge. Not since my family many years before had gathered food and supplies in the 60’s, during the Cuban Missile Crisis had we felt the terror. As a family, we made plans, we searched for holes where we could gather and we waited for the bombs to fall.

We were guided by fools, surrounded by many that would curse us for being Anti-American and terrorists and that we didn’t love our country.

We did love our Country but it had been taken from us. Sadness filled my heart when a late night comedy talk show out of New York, finally returned to the air and they talked softly to a newsman who had seen a hundred wars, squatted in mud and ditches and told us what he saw. I only remember him breaking down in tears after saying he could never say the words to the song America the Beautiful again without remembering the death, the falling towers, the people running in terror.

As he cried, he uttered “We have already lost the War and we have not fired a shot…” They cut to a commercial. When they returned, he apologized to the audience saying that he was a newsman, a professional and should have been able to tell the story without the emotion.

But his words were right: “We have already lost the War and we have not fired a shot…”
Bunny knew something was wrong. She knew that whatever we were being fed that something was just not right. At the upcoming 4th of July parade in our little town, she wanted to hold signs of Peace.

New fears took hold and more died and the battles and the death drags on today 14 years later.

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A final thought. At a time when I had money, I bought art..oil paintings, etchings, antique posters to crowd our walls. In August of 2001, I purchased a painting from a young artist, Lapusan in Romania, I received it. It was dated July 2001. A few days following 9/11, I took the painting to my favorite framers in New England. When the framers unrolled the painting, they both said “That was quick! I am surprised the oil has dried”

I questioned them and they both pointed to a corner of the painting that clearly shows a plane flying into buildings. I always wondered how that kid, painting in July in Romania, knew.

I remember that he was a artist and the artists saw the world differently.

Remember today, remember the thousands that were killed by misguided men filled with blood hate, killed innocents needlessly by twisting the words of a God and remember the hundreds of thousands of children and mothers and fathers and our own sons and daughters who were killed or injured needlessly to fill the pockets of all those whose spirits were filled with greed.